Bastards.
Humane Society backs off no kill goal
SCOTT FONTAINE; The News Tribune
Published: February 21st, 2008 05:54 PM
The Humane Society for Tacoma & Pierce County has quietly backed off a bold initiative to make Pierce County a “no-kill community” by the end of this year.
The goal of eliminating enthanasia for all but sick and unadoptable animals was announced at a Feb. 1, 2006 news conference. “As of December 31st, 2008, we want to be in the position of never having to euthanize a healthy adoptable animal again,” said Walli Roarke, who was the board’s president at the time.
But the organization realized the mission was unrealistic and has since been abandoned, members of the board of directors said.
“We knew from the get-go that it was a very difficult if not impossible goal” to become a no-kill shelter, board vice president Phyllis Harrison said Thursday. “We knew it would not be an easy thing to do. And we realized fairly quickly that, because we’re committed to being an open-admission shelter, it was going to be impossible to be an absolute no-kill shelter.”
The group also announced it would build a $1.4 million shelter for cats and sick animals at the same 2006 press conference, but those plans have also been shelved, Harrison said.
Leaders can’t recall an exact point when the no kill goal was abandoned.
As recently as March 14, 2007, this pledge appeared on the group’s Web site, according to archieved pages on
www.waybackmachine.org: “Our Commitment: Effective December 31, 2008, the Humane Society will no longer euthanize healthy, adoptable pets. We pledge to lead our community to become a “no-kill” community.”
By the following week, the page disappeared.
The Humane Society is now focusing on “working toward zero euthanasia” through preventative measures like spaying and neutering, board president Dick Heaton said. He said the organization’s policy of taking in every animal brought to it makes a no-kill policy untenable.
At the press conference two years ago, the organization launched the “End the Heartache” campaign in hopes of ending euthanasia of healthy, adoptable pets by the end of 2008. They stressed at the time they couldn’t become an absolute no-kill shelter because some sick or injured or dangerous animals would still be euthanized.
The goal remains eliminating euthanasia of healthy, adoptable animals, executive director Kathleen Olson said, and the organization hopes to accomplish that by strongly encouraging owners to spay or neuter their pets. It operates mobile spay/neuter vans and will partner with other animal-warfare groups to open a low-cost spay/neuter clinic at 2106 Tacoma Ave. on March 6. If enough animals are spayed or neutered, that could provide an opportunity for the Humane Society to eliminate euthanasia for adoptable animals.
“To say we’re a no-kill shelter – that’s what our goal is,” Heaton said. “In reality, if we have an animal who medically or behaviorally cannot be adopted, or if there aren’t simply enough homes for adoptable ones, eventually we’ll have too many pets in the shelter for too long. Disease or some other problem will break out, forcing us to euthanize those pets.”
In 2005 and 2006, Pierce County and Tacoma took back responsibility for animal control and licensing, but the organization contracts with both for sheltering services. That factor alone means Humane Society staffers will euthanize animals.
“We would like would become a no-kill shelter,” Olson said. “But to do that, we would have had to tell the city and the county, ‘Oh, by the way, will you build a separate shelter just to do euthanasia? We only want to take in animals we can adopt out.’ “As this evolved, the board realized that since we’re the only shelter in the county, we will never be able to be able to do no-kill because we’re the only ones who can do euthanasia.”
The shelter euthanized 116 healthy, adoptable dogs and 1,981 adoptable cats last year – a number Olson calls “far too many.” Staffers also put down 673 pit bulls last year because they’re overbred and many people don’t want to adopt them, Olson said. The Humane Society received a spike in the number of animals that entered the shelter – likely attributed to the no-kill announcement. Last year, it received 17,441 animals. That’s 934 more than the year before.
“Our volume went up because people heard ‘no-kill’ and said, ‘Oh, well, I don’t need to worry about Rover. I’ll just drop him off at the Humane Society,’ ” she said.
The organization’s plan to construct a $1.4 million building to house more cats and allow workers to segregate sick animals from the healthy population while they’re being treated is on hold, Harrison said. It is instead focusing on developing its spay/neuter clinics and reorganizing space at its Nalley Valley building to better segregate sick animals.
“One of the critical things in sheltering animals is not putting animals who come in sick with the healthy animals,” she said. “Some of those feline viruses can spread like wildfire. So we’re not creating a new facility, but we’re modifying the space we have.”
Animal groups across the country are increasingly adopting a no-kill policy, and many of those encounter difficulty in implementing it, said Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States.
“There’s been a lot of talk, but there are very few that have been able to achieve it and have significant intake,” he said. “If you’re a small, humane organization and there’s a larger animal control facility in your area, it might be achievable.”
But, as Olson points out, the Humane Society of for Tacoma & Pierce County is the primary shelter in the county and routinely registers higher intake numbers than all of King County’s facilities.
“The bottom line is,” Harrison said, “the notion of a community that never has to euthanize animals, that’s pretty idealistic.”
